American Economic Review
ISSN 0002-8282 (Print) | ISSN 1944-7981 (Online)
The Economist as Plumber
American Economic Review
vol. 107,
no. 5, May 2017
(pp. 1–26)
Abstract
As economists increasingly help governments design new policies and regulations, they take on an added responsibility to engage with the details of policy making and, in doing so, to adopt the mindset of a plumber. Plumbers try to predict as well as possible what may work in the real world, mindful that tinkering and adjusting will be necessary since our models gives us very little theoretical guidance on what (and how) details will matter. This essay argues that economists should seriously engage with plumbing, in the interest of both society and our discipline.Citation
Duflo, Esther. 2017. "The Economist as Plumber." American Economic Review, 107 (5): 1–26. DOI: 10.1257/aer.p20171153Additional Materials
JEL Classification
- A11 Role of Economics; Role of Economists; Market for Economists